Family History: A health screening will check those with Jewish heritage for common hereditary diseases.

When Rachel Denbo Labovitz’s parents got married and decided to undergo genetic screening before starting a family, they were on the cutting edge. Back then, in the 1980s, the Jewish couple knew they were at risk of having children with the deadly hereditary disease called Tay-Sachs, so they traveled from north Alabama to Atlanta to undergo a new test at Emory University. Both tested negative, and doctors gave them the all-clear to start having children.

But Tay-Sachs is just one of 19 inherited ailments common in this country’s Jewish population, something Labovitz and her family didn’t realize until years later when her younger sister was diagnosed as a teen with Gaucher Disease, an enzyme disorder that causes weakness and immune system problems.

“At the time, there was no way for my parents to know the genetic mutations would ultimately lead to my sister’s condition,” says Labovitz, who is a resident physician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is driven in part by an interest in understanding genetic diseases.

This month, the Birmingham Jewish Federation is trying to change all that. The group has raised money and partnered with the Philadelphia-based Victor Center for the Prevention of Jewish Diseases to offer a one-day screening to anyone in Birmingham with Jewish ancestry.

The Jewish Genetic Gene Screen will be held Jan. 13 at the Levite Jewish Community Center. Participants with medical insurance will pay just $25 (payment arrangements can be made for the uninsured) to be tested for all 19 conditions commonly found in the Jewish population.

These diseases — some are rare and found only in Jewish families from Eastern and Central Europe, others, like cystic fibrosis, are better known but more prevalent in those with Jewish heritage — can take a terrible toll on families, says Caren Seligman, outreach director for the Birmingham Jewish Federation.

The screening event came into being when an anonymous donor, whose friend’s child was born with another genetic disease called Blum syndrome, came to Seligman offering to fund a screening. The federation matched his gift and turned to the Victor Center for help doing the blood tests. Genetic counselors will also be on

hand to answer questions.

“This is such an incredible opportunity,” Seligman says. “A community of our size has never done something like this; it’s normally done in larger cities like Atlanta or Philadelphia, places where there are 20,000-plus Jews, while we have about 5,000 Jews here in Birmingham. We are very fortunate.”

Seligman says they hope to have as many as 200 men and women tested.

Anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent could be a carrier and should be screened if they’re at least 18 and still of child-bearing age, even if they’re not currently planning to start a family. Students home visiting from college should go ahead and get checked now, she says, so there’s less to worry about down the road.

That’s just what Labovitz would suggest. She was screened as a teen after her sister’s condition was discovered and found to be a carrier for two genetic diseases; fortunately her husband, tested many years later, screened negative. Now she encourages her friends and even her fellow medical residents to be screened.

“We wanted to know the risk for our future children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” Labovitz says. “Why wouldn’t you do it?”

Details

What: The Birmingham Jewish Federation and Victor Center are paying all but $25 of the cost of genetic screening for 19 disorders found in the Jewish population.

Who: Anyone 18 or older with Jewish ancestry, even if only a grandparent was Jewish.

How to sign up: Register at victorcenters.org/screenings. For more information, contact Caren Seligman at 205-803-1521 or email CarenS@bjf.org.

Why Jewish genetic diseases?

Jews whose families came from Central and Eastern Europe are at higher risk than the general population for a range of genetic disorders, most likely because small isolated Jewish communities centuries ago tended to intermarry. Each emerges only when both parents carry the genetic marker for it. In fact, one in four such Jews is estimated to be a carrier for one of the disease genes: